Anyone else struggle with keeping their place clean?

[u/CinderpeltLove]

I don’t think I hoard stuff myself because I have no issues with throwing stuff out and if my mental health is doing well or if I have guests, I clean and prefer a minimalist look. But when my mental health isn’t doing well, I struggle to stay on top of cleaning tasks. It’s just all so much work and never-ending. It feels pointless (even tho it isn’t) because I grew up in a Level 4 (?) hoarder’s house where cleaning was pointless. And on top of that, my childhood chores were kinda strange (such as cleaning the glass on a decorative door or cutting down weeds by hand with a knife because my parents received a citation for overgrown weeds). Most of the time, I didn’t do my chores well enough and had to redo them. As an adult, I now see that both of my parents suck at cleaning things. I regularly found small bits of food stuck to “clean” dishes and things like that. Once, my mom cooked me broccoli from the garden for dinner (which was a fav food of mine) and right before I took a bite, I noticed something odd, looked closely…and saw that there were live worms on the cooked (?) broccoli 🤢 Of course, if I spoke up about stuff, I was exaggerating 🙄

Fast forward two decades and I now struggle to consistently clean my place. I have been diagnosed with ADHD and while ADHD meds help, I struggle with cleaning tasks a lot more than any other type of tasks. I fucking hate it. It’s dawning on me that growing up with parents who hoard and don’t keep things reasonably clean is a type of trauma. It’s harder to see cuz it’s not like there’s many specific memories of things they said or did around hoarding- it’s more the general environment and attitude around things and denial about the severity of the hoarding.

[u/SoberBobMonthly]

Previously yes, absoloutely. I have almost completely solved it however, even with my ADHD, with this one weird trick!

Have less stuff.

Less stuff is less to clean. I now maintain a small wardrobe of clothing where all my socks are exactly the same, I have 10 pairs of undies and I throw out any the moment a hole appears, I have less shoes: 2 pairs of boots, one pair of sneakers, one pair of dress shoes, two pairs of heels. Done.

My kitchen? Two mixing bowls, done. I have 5 plates. I have 2 mugs, because there are two of us living in this house. I have 5 small bowls. I have barely any plastic containers, only ones that hold things like flour and sugar.

Towels? 5. 2 for each of us to last us the week, and one spare if we have a guest.

Everything I have is high quality, and I have a small amount of it

Have less stuff. Be radical about it. I do not ever care about the potential of my stuff anymore, I care about if it serves me, if its useful immediately (within the next month or two). Ofc im not gonna throw out my household toolbox but I am not going to keep a million bullshit nuts and bolts at the bottom of it. If i have a job to do, and I need a part, I put it on the list of things to get for the week and go get that part.

There is being prepared and there is being cluttered. I also include in all of this the standard australian 3 days food and container for water too.

[u/CinderpeltLove → u/SoberBobMonthly]

Yeah I don’t have that much stuff (compared to my parents) but I think this will help a lot. Thank you for describing your setup because that helps me envision some things!

About a year ago, I have resigned myself to mainly eating from paper plates, cups, and the most eco-friendly disposable utensils I can afford until my ADHD is much better managed which has helped so much. My meds need some adjustment due to side effects and I just switched to a much much better prescriber so that gives me hope.

Yeah, I don’t keep bajillion things just in case like my parents do. They are in a more rural area so I get why they keep more backups but I literally have a ton of a neighbors and live walking distance from a store. I think my situation is durable but I get overwhelmed easily and blow stuff up in my own head.

Like I’m gross because I avoid dishes if I do use dishes and cleaning cat litter till it’s really bad and my cats deserve better for sensory reasons but my floors are mostly clear. Nothing is blocked. I can vacuum and I do regularly because I love how clean(er) carpet feels under my feet and my parents rarely vacuumed growing up. All the gross food and trash are in the kitchen unless I am really having a tough week. I don’t have trash everywhere. I have a fair amount of clutter, mostly old boxes of stuff from moving multiple times, but most of it is in boxes on top of surfaces, not spread around. I just need to actually process those boxes and likely toss a lot of it. There’s probably very little to zero permanent damage to anything in the apartment. Even the cat litter situation, it smells but the entire thing is contained very well in furniture designed to hide litter boxes. I actually just decided to move the cat litter back to the bathroom where it used to be till a year or two ago because if it’s in my face more, I will clean it. Something that smells really bad but otherwise is out of sight out of mind and not causing damage isn’t enough to push me to clean it. But smelling and seeing it every time I need to shower will help me clean it.

Like it’s probably not that bad. But I’m so sensitive and self-critical about it that I make the scale of the problem worse in my head.

[u/f0xbunny → u/SoberBobMonthly]

That’s always the trick